May 6, 2008

Artificial mouth could be robotic taste-tester

An artificial mouth was recently developed that has the ability to chew food similar to a human, making it a good robotic taste-tester to better understand flavor. When food is chewed, it releases compounds which affect taste. Using speed motors, mechanical teeth, and a pipe pumping "enzyme-containing artificial saliva", the mouth-bot is an almost-living, breathing (via helium, anyway) mastication machine.